DFW Hospital Council Wants Answers About Blackouts

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NORTH TEXAS (KRLD) – With more winter weather and freezing temperatures in the forecast this week, the organization representing 75 hospitals in North Texas wants some answers about last weeks rolling blackouts.

Steve Love is the president of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council and in an interview with KRLD NewsRadio 1080 said the council wants answers to some serious questions.

‘Let’s make this a positive by scheduling a meeting with Oncor and ERCOT, and say ‘what went wrong? What can we do to correct this? Let’s make sure it doesn’t happen in the future,’” Love said. ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, supervises the state’s electric grid.

Love said he couldn’t believe health facilities across the state were affected, since hospitals have understood for years, that they’re exempt. “To my knowledge, the rolling blackouts have never included hospitals being terminated, as far as power.”

When asked if hospitals were notified they’d be included in the blackouts Love said, “To my knowledge, in talking to our hospitals, no. They did not know that the rolling blackouts would even impact them and did not have any warning.”

It wasn’t as if local hospitals had no power, there are backups in place, but Love says the act of working in the ‘backup plan’ changes everything. “Anytime you have the power go out, even when your emergency generators come into play, it puts you in a different operational mode,” he explained.

While backup power kept local hospitals functioning, the lack of electricity did cause some surgeries to be cancelled.

Love says the council wants to sit down with Oncor and state regulators to make sure it never happens again.

The Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council is made up of CEO’s from more than 70 North Texas hospitals.